Clowns At Midnight

by Terry Dowling

  ‘That’s what I call clinically rigorous,’ she said.

  ‘But a healthy obsession, doctor, yes?’

  Another smile. This was better. ‘Healthy enough.’

  It was 6:14 when I dropped her outside the Exchange.

  ‘Can I see you again?’

  ‘Sure. But I need to think about things a bit. You’re going to be around. Leave it for a while, okay?’ She got out of the car. ‘Thanks, David.’

  ‘Bye, Gemma.’

  First the picnic, now this. I returned to Starbreak Fell singing and grinning, certain now that something wonderful and intimate was possible, an even more significant turn in my life.

  I watched some television, risking it, mainly to get the flavour of the local ads, then wrote for an hour. Before logging off at around 10:30, feeling braver, bolder, I slipped in Disk 4 and brought up the black page.

  Did I imagine it or were there the slightest traces of lines in its darkness, the barest ghosts and flecks going this way and that; hints of gold, too, like in some never-finished, never-conceived Rembrandt study of armoured men at night? That’s how it seemed, and I actually looked about the study for light or reflection sources that might be putting those lines and old-gold highlights on the screen.

  There was nothing that I could find, and when I looked back at the page it seemed wholly black again, though I truly couldn’t be certain. First impressions aside, perhaps it had never been truly black. Perhaps, as I’d suspected, it contained some far more sophisticated variant of William Friedkin’s subliminals in The Exorcist and changed with continued exposure. My brain was just getting used to it, that was all, adjusting to what had been there all along.

  But I didn’t intend to repeat my ordeal of Sunday night. The black page was still on the disk. I checked that the hieroglyph was in its place on Disk 5. Enough for now.

  I shut down the system and got ready for bed, thinking of Gemma, thinking of Jack’s reasoning behind his adding the new TT images, then managed five pages of Renault’s novel, reading about the fortunes of Nikeratos and wondering what it must have been like to be an actor in ancient Greece.

  Those thoughts became reverie, then dreams, then a sweet oblivion that took me through to morning.

  CHAPTER 9

  It was a new kind of day, the Thursday that followed, fine and hot but so beautifully clear that it felt crisp and cool. For the first time there were no plumes on the hills, or if there were, they stood no chance against the blue and mauve clarity of the ranges. It was as if a familiar painting had been cleaned, or a computer screen wiped of dust; everything made whole and vivid again.

  At a practical level, the Rankins’ two concrete water tanks were full. The river beyond the screen of trees would probably be a single band of green now, the boulders and cattle bones hidden for a time, but just for a time. The heat wave conditions would return, the hazing of the light, the bushfire plumes in their smudges and loose spirals. Like the bottle-trees vanishing, the storm would be forgotten. The blazing days would link up and drive it out of mind.

  But for now the birds were chattering wildly up on the hill, the dams were full and sparkling and the world was new again.

  Jack phoned at 10:30 and I gave him a carefully vetted account of things.

  ‘Jack, hi! I made myself a bottle-tree.’

  ‘You made yourself a bottle-tree, good. So what’s a bottle-tree?’

  I told him. He hm’d in all the right places. I didn’t say what had happened to it, didn’t mention the other bottle-trees or the Yakkos cries or the picnic or even ask if he had put the extra images on my disks. As much as I needed to have that settled, I needed a healthy distance even more. I accepted that he had added the images—needed to believe he had—but had done so in the same spirit as Beth Rankin leaving that one thing to test me. He probably assumed that I hadn’t found them yet.

  ‘Jack, I might have some questions for Dr Constantiou.’

  ‘He’s out of the country right now, Dave. Took his father home to Crete. He’ll be emailing and phoning in. I can relay anything, or have him contact you there if you like.’

  ‘It’s just about the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Anything wrong?’

  ‘Not a thing, Jack. Just what most writers call research.’

  ‘Understood. Writer’s code for little actual writing but lots of healthy curiosity.’

  ‘Too much time on the Net. You know the drill.’

  ‘You winning?’

  ‘In nearly every sense, I think. Enough to make me continue to bless your name.’

  ‘Sounds about right. Glib. Lyrical. Warning me off. But you’ll call the moment it isn’t working, Dave, okay?’

  ‘Jack, I will. You know I will.’

  ‘Speak to you during the week.’

  ‘Bye.’

  Then, since I had the phone in my hand, I decided to call Carlo, and surprised myself by remembering the Risis’ number.

  He answered on the fourth ring.

  ‘Hello? This is Carlo.’

  ‘Carlo? Good morning. It’s David Leeton.’

  ‘David, come sta! It’s good to hear from you.’

  ‘Thanks, Carlo. I was wondering if I could see the mask again? Maybe photograph it for my files.’

  ‘But, of course. Today, yes? Your tolerance tests. Please, be welcome! It will be an honour to have it included. Unfortunately, Raina is over in Lismore with Katerina, but I am here. Say, around eleven?’

  ‘Perfect. If I’m not intruding.’

  ‘Not at all. It gives me more than just the pigs and sheep to talk to. They do not get my jokes. I shall look forward to it.’

  When I replaced the phone in its cradle, I felt such relief. Just the call, just the invitation, were enough to calm me. I would see the mask, photograph it, somehow encompass it, confine it as the commonplace of a photograph, trap it in a file. I would see Carlo and get my chance to ask about the bottle-trees, perhaps hear his reaction to my article on the Commedia.

  At 10:50 I locked the house and made the short drive through the hot morning to the Risis’. As usual, I was the only one using Edenville Road, and seemed to be the only thing moving in the landscape until I saw an eagle high up, riding the thermals.

  I smiled. You only ever needed one thing to stop it being a postcard or a painting on a wall. There was always something if you looked closely enough. This one eagle anchored it, kept it real.

  Following local custom, I stopped at the mailbox to see if there were any mail I could take inside. There wasn’t, but it felt good to check legitimately. It somehow sanctioned the earlier glances within.

  Carlo was waiting on the veranda when I pulled into the turning area, wearing well-worn work clothes and with the sheen of sweat still on his healthy, olive-skinned face. He smiled and waved, and seemed genuinely glad to see me.

  We exchanged pleasantries, me answering polite questions about how I was managing, him assuring me again that I wasn’t interrupting.

  ‘Raina tells me you joined their picnic on Tuesday,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘I did, yes. It was like falling into paradise. I just hope I wasn’t intruding.’

  ‘Not at all. Raina said you completed it.’

  ‘Completed it? She’s being gracious and charming, Carlo. Tell her to be careful or I’ll be spending every Tuesday lurking in the forest.’

  Carlo laughed. ‘Searching for paradise, sì. There are worse things. I will tell her.’

  As we talked, I couldn’t help but glance at the long hedge-wall at the back of the house, tucked in under three Moreton Bay figs. On my previous visit, I had taken that wall for a windbreak, but now I knew better.

  When Carlo saw the direction of my gaze, he gestured proudly. ‘I’ve been tending it. It has a way of taking over your life.’

  ‘It’s larger than I thought.’

  ‘Almost five hundred square metres. Let me show you.’

  We walked down the side of the house and climbed the four steps onto th
e back terrace.

  ‘Ecco, the Risi folly!’ Carlo said, arms wide in a theatrical gesture.

  The maze walls were at least two metres high, but the additional elevation let us see over into the enclosure. The tops of hedge lines stretched out under the hot sun. I could hear the chattering of irrigation sprinklers, could see the arcing spray of two above the green, making their constant glitter, tossing rainbows back and forth and giving the foliage a striking enamelled sheen.

  ‘Very impressive, Carlo. I had no idea.’

  ‘It’s what the Germans call an irrgarten, a puzzle hedge maze. Quite a modern thing, I’ve learned. In spite of all the myths about labyrinths, almost all those in antiquity were unicursal—a single path, can you believe it? Easy to navigate. Puzzle mazes mostly began during the Middle Ages.’

  ‘I’m surprised. I always thought ancient mazes were deliberately difficult.’

  ‘So did I, David. So did I. It’s a popular misconception. The one at Knossos which supposedly housed the Minotaur, Asterion, was really just the royal storerooms of the palace. Intricate and complex, but probably no more intentionally difficult than the passageways under Disneyland. The pyramids and tombs of ancient Egypt had simple passage systems really—if you don’t count the step pyramid at Saqqara. That’s a mess inside, shafts and corridors everywhere, but more from later additions than Imhotep’s original design. The Egyptian builders mostly counted on misdirection, false doors, and the sheer mass of the masonry. No, the irrgarten like this came much later. I’ve read up on them. Mine is nothing compared to the Chevening or Longleat mazes in England, or even the ones here at Duntroon and Shoreham.’

  ‘It must draw quite a bit of local attention.’

  ‘Few people know of it. Our friends keep it to themselves.’

  ‘But what about planes flying over?’

  He gestured at the pines and Moreton Bay figs that shaded the house and bordered the hedge perimeter. ‘Those hide much of it. You need to be directly overhead. The gate is usually padlocked, as you know. Trespassers are discouraged or politely turned away. Shall we try it?’

  It was a maze. I steeled myself, ready for the appropriate adornments: masks, minotaurs and other statuary, grottoes and grotesqueries such as haunted the famous Sacred Grove near Viterbo in Italy.

  ‘Yes, please. But the other night you said it was dangerous. Are we talking David-dangerous or in general terms?’

  Carlo smiled. ‘General terms. Let me show you.’

  ‘There are no statues?’

  ‘Niente. You are safe. Andiamo!’

  We stepped off the terrace, but Carlo didn’t head for the main entry with its flanking sandstone pillars and vine-covered arch. Instead, he led me to the northwestern corner, reached into the wall foliage and unlatched a hidden lock. A section of vine-covered lattice swung out to make an opening barely a half-metre wide.

  ‘Servant’s entrance,’ he said, smiling again. ‘Or the master’s, as Raina prefers to call it. Come.’

  I followed him into the narrow maze corridor, a walk not quite a metre wide, and he closed the foliage-covered gate behind us. It was as if it never existed. We stood flanked by greenery, hearing nothing but the chattering of the sprinklers further off in the distance.

  ‘There are no statues here, David,’ Carlo said, ‘so you be Theseus and lead the way.’

  I did so. I could see he wanted me to have the pleasure of each twist and turn, and though I tingled with the usual anticipation at rounding new corners in unfamiliar places, I was glad to do it. Who knew how many visitors the Risis had who could appreciate this? This visit was as much for his enjoyment as mine. Better yet, it was something shared, a good step in a growing friendship.

  The passage narrowed, widened then narrowed again, was closely trimmed in places, left ragged and wild in others for a different effect. Just when it looked as if a section hadn’t been tended in a while, we’d pass through into a perfectly tended corridor complete with classical lines and even hedge-wall buttress features with topiaried tops—civilisation after being in the wilderness, spaciousness after having the hedges pressing at your shoulders.

  Despite an abiding anxiety, it was great fun. We were fifteen minutes in and only one thing had brought a quick stab of alarm: a metre-tall rectangular sandstone pillar with a globe-shaped finial atop its slender neck. It was like some minimalist statue minus limbs and facial features: someone not only turned to lion-coloured sandstone by the neighbourhood gorgon, but reduced to geometric solids as well. It was all I could do to lock my gaze beyond it, quickly pass by and trust that Carlo hadn’t noticed.

  Then I turned a corner and stopped so suddenly that Carlo ran into me.

  ‘Scusi, David. What is wrong?’ he asked.

  Something stood in the intersection. There where several passages became an open space before plunging off again was a two-metre tall construct of weathered brass and, yes, with pointers, slender arms sticking out, signpost fashion, each arm in three sections like an extended telescope. I froze in my tracks, registering all the familiar symptoms.

  ‘What?’ Carlo said. Then, looking beyond me, seeing what was ahead, added: ‘Fa male? This bothers you?’

  ‘Can’t help it,’ I managed. ‘It’s like a scarecrow. What I call—a Scarecrow Cross.’

  ‘David, scusi, amico! I’m so sorry. I never realised. We go back!’

  ‘No, no. I have to work at this. What is it?’

  ‘The danger I spoke of. The other danger.’

  I made myself continue. I needed to see. In bright sunlight, between the lush, verdant walls, I moved forward.

  It was like an elongated chesspiece, a lathe-turned shaft like an ornate newel post taller than I was and as thick through as my thigh, stretched and drawn so it was lean like an El Greco pawn set firmly in the earth at the intersection, and with four signpost arms two-thirds up its length. But not arms—spikes! The thing had spikes, one pointing down each intersection approach.

  ‘But, Carlo, why?’

  ‘David, I did not build this maze. It was already here when Papa bought the place in the fifties. It was offered as a deceased estate, and this was a large part of why he bought it. This was here. He later pulled down the old house and built the new one, but this was the reason. Imagine it, a dédale here! Someone had actually created a maison de dédale. I have had time to learn about mazes, to appreciate the history. Papa just saw it and found it fascinating. They had planned to move into the area, to raise pigs or beef cattle—this was as good a place as any—and this was here. I now know it is modelled on the one made by Gilas Relene at Padua. I never thought that it would trouble you. I never dreamed –’

  ‘I can manage, Carlo,’ I said, moving towards the thing, needing to deal with it. ‘Please. Those spikes are retractable?’

  Carlo hurried by me to stand near the construct. ‘Used to be, sì. They could be activated by clockwork, wound up and left to operate by a timer: extending and retracting. But that was long ago. They’re locked in place now, extended like this.’

  ‘This is why it’s dangerous at night.’

  ‘Sì, this is why. It is not so uncommon. In England, a maze at Capel Manor has rows of flames and fountains to bar your way. There are pressure pads to activate them. The Tenement Maze that Charles Connolly built in New York last year has spiked walls, falling weights and doors opening onto lift shafts. Whoever made this one wanted there to be danger as well, the thrill of risk. It’s all I can think of.’

  ‘You haven’t removed them.’ I tried not to make it sound like an accusation.

  ‘I am fascinated by it. These are maiming devices. Much more subtle than Connolly’s maze, less sensational.’ He didn’t sound in the least defensive, rather as if he were talking to a fellow conspirator, one who understood compulsion and how you could stand both for and against the same thing. ‘There are four of these posts, all beautifully tooled from solid brass, true works of art.’

  ‘Like Swiss army knives.’

&nbs
p; ‘That’s it, sì! Antique ones. I would love to know who made them. There is a manufacturer’s sigil near the base, very clear on two of them, worn on the others, but just the initials FJD inside a rosette. It doesn’t help.’

  ‘You don’t use the maze at night.’

  ‘Only rarely. There are lights, but mostly it is locked. Are you okay?’

  I wasn’t okay. A headache was building, as debilitating as ever when quarter-clown was triggered without warning. First the stone globe on the pedestal, now this.

  Carlo saw me put my hand to my temples.

  ‘David, please. Come into the house. I am so sorry.’

  He led me back the way we had come, using several shortcuts so we made quick work of it. Soon we were passing through the main entrance and climbing the four steps to the terrace. When I looked out over the maze again, I thought I could spot at least two spiked constructs, like chess-pieces in hiding, their newel tops peering back at us over the greenery.

  ‘David, I never expected this to happen,’ Carlo said. ‘Come inside. I have a herbal I can give you. One of Raina’s mixtures. It is very good. Then perhaps something stronger.’

  We didn’t go into the dining room. The Etruscan face was there. Rather he led me into the kitchen and sat me at a wooden table in a sunny, comfortable room hung with onions and garlic, with pasta in jars, brightly polished cooking utensils, a large brick oven and clean, well-used counters. I could smell grains, herbs and spices, good smells, reassuring and hospitable.

  Carlo took a dark brown bottle from a cupboard, poured a shot of some elixir, and handed it to me.

  ‘This will taste like demon bait, but it will clear the gloom.’

  I hesitated only a moment then downed it in one swallow. The taste was awful; the alcohol in it made me gasp.

  Carlo returned the bottle to the cupboard. ‘Now, please, a glass of red. Just one. It will not spoil your day. I can make us lunch.’

  I didn’t argue, just nodded and watched Carlo pour two glasses of wine, gladly took one when he handed it to me. I sipped at it while he began laying out plates with antipasto and cheeses, filling a basket with thick bread.